Attack of the Heart
by Indigo2831
Summary: Tag to 2.15, Mai Ka Wa Kahiko.  Danny, Grace and Rachel are still reeling from the Grace's kidnapping.  Angst, drama and bromance abound.  Complete.
1. Chapter 1

Hi! This was supposed to be a simple tag to Mai Ka Wa Kahiko (2.15) but then I just had to harvest all of the seeds of angst the show sowed. I tried not to make it soap-opera ish, but I may have failed. Let me know what you think. Aloha!**  
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><p><strong>Attack of the Heart<strong>

Grace's crying had amplified into near hysterics.

Danny and Rachel flanked their daughter, who was swaddled in a jauntily polka dotted hospital gown, issuing useless coos of comfort and reassurance. Rachel smiled at her daughter, the picture of the calm maternal force she could be but even her reserves were faltering as Grace struggled and twisted on gurney.

"Darling, your body needs water and the IV will help."

Grace looked at her father with huge, sunken eyes and ruddy cheeks. "Danno, please. I don't want a shot. I want to go home. If you take me home, I'll drink a lot, I swear."

Danny itched closer to her on the hospital gurney, and nestled Grace into his arms. "Monkey, all I want to do is wrap you up and take you home. I know you've had the worst day in the history of days—and I'm sorry, but this will help. I promise it'll help."

Grace sobbed against him, limp in his grasp and weaker than Danny had realized. It was the first time in her life that his assurances hadn't worked. She didn't trust him and after he'd gotten her kidnapped and locked in a hot, dank, dark storage locker—Rick's improvised version of her own personal prison—Danny didn't blame her.

He glanced at Dr. Savannah Jensen, who'd saved his life twice and the only one he'd trust with his little girl, and rolled up his sleeve. "Can you give me an IV, so she can see that it's nothing to worry about?"

Dr. Jensen smiled at his ingenuity, whisking her black, straight hair behind her ear. "Of course, Danny." She collected the supplies, and rolled her stool over to Danny's side of the bed.

"Grace," she called invitingly. "You want to watch me, so you can see how it works?"

Grace peeked meekly over her father's ribs to watch Dr. Jensen sanitize the crook of Danny's arm with alcohol, and insert the needle and the empty port with practiced hands with distraught distaste. Danny looked down at Grace with a soft frankness. "Have I ever lied to you, Grace?"

She shook her head immediately.

"Good girl. So you have to believe me when I hurts for a second, just a second. It feels like a hard pinch and then it's okay, over? So if you're still and patient, you'll start feeling better before you know it."

"Hold my hand?"

Danny took his daughter's trembling hand without a word. "Anything else?"

"No."

"Really? We need to work on your negotiation skills, monkey. I think you could have gotten another dog out of this one, maybe a pony. A spaceship, even."

Grace just whimpered.

"Close your eyes, Monkey, and think of a happy day, your favorite one. One far away from this one, like when you're baby brother was born…or when we got stuck in Manhattan because of the blizzard, remember?"

Dr. Jensen worked quickly, retrieving a smaller gauge of needle and the bags of saline.

"We stayed in the hotel in Times Square…and you took me outside when it was really late. The city was quiet and…empty. The snow was sparky…" Grace said.

Danny swelled with pride at his daughter as she managed a dazzling smile even through she'd been kidnapped and was feverish and weak from the heat and dehydration. Her eyes locked on his and she squeezed his hand. "And they left the lights on in Times Square lights were on and it made…"

"Rainbow snow," Grace finished, flinching with a sad little squeak as the needle slid in.

Rachel kissed the top of her daughter's head, shushing her. "All done, sweetheart."

When Grace quieted, Danny continued. "We need to have another magic day to make up for this one. You think of something for me, let me know what you want to do."

But Grace was limp beside him, head slumped to the side. Danny's heart hammered in alarm and he shook her gently. "Grace…hey, open your eyes?"

Savannah shook her head and placed a hand on Danny's arm. "She's just sleeping, Danny. She's exhausted. It's okay."

Danny felt his head rattle as he shook it frantically. "Check her again, just to be sure."

Dr. Jensen acquiesced without a word, listening to Grace's heart and lungs with her stethoscope. Danny wrung his hands together. "I'm being insane, right? I mean this kid falls asleep faster than my old man. She's slightly narcoleptic."

"After what you both have been through today, you're being a _parent_." She assured him. "Once Grace is rehydrated, you'll be able to take her home. I called in a favor with a friend and Margie, one of the best pediatric nurses we have will be observing Grace while she's here. I'll sign off on her myself before she leaves."

"Thank you so much…" Rachel added.

"Yeah, Savannah, thank you."

Dr. Jensen shrugged. "Try spending a month out of my ER, and we're even, okay?"

Danny laughed, but it sounded crazed to his ears. "You've met my partner, right?"

-H50-

He could feel his heart beating, rapid and tight in his chest, churning out adrenaline that made it impossible for him to sit still or even try to sleep. Danny marveled that it'd managed to survive the day's stress and blinding terror. He stood up again, wiping his sweaty palms on his pants, wanting nothing more than the take Grace home—their cozy house in New Jersey with the finicky garage door, old school radiators and a love that had emanated there. He wanted this erase this entire day from Grace's mind. He wanted to rewind it all so that he'd never testified, never moved to Hawaii, never pulled the trigger.

Shooting someone in the shoulder wasn't as safe as it appeared in movies. The shoulder was a joint of complicated bones and arteries and Danny had seen victims bleed out in a matter of minutes. But it was better than the chest, where the bullet could have punched through Stan's lungs or his heart or could've hit the spine. It was Stan's only chance. Danny hadn't hesitated to take it.

And that made him sick to his stomach, made him just as dirty and twisted Rick.

He altered the figure-eight pattern he'd been pacing in and left Grace's observation room. His gaze moved unerringly to where Steve was sitting in the narrow row of chairs in the hallway, even though it was nearly 3 AM, and the rest of the team had gone home hours ago. He walked out, pulled away from his daughter by a flash of fleeting courage.

Steve leapt to his feet. "Hey...is she okay?"

"Nothing a decade of therapy won't fix. I need to step away." Danny said, giving Steve a pointed look. "Watch my kid."

"Sure."

"Let me be clear: I don't want Steve McGarrett, my friend who likes beers and football games and drags out his Navy uniform to impress the ladies. I don't want Uncle Steve, the fun guy who collects and paints seashells with Grace. I want the Navy SEAL who leaps off buildings and uses grenades to move along interrogations. I want the guy who sent like 43 people to GitMo and would kill an old woman with a basket of puppies if it meant protecting my kid."

"Done." Steve's posture changed, tightened at the shoulders and his eyes darkened with danger. He was still wearing his vest and gun and turned without a word, stepping just inside the door, guarding and protecting.

Danny left before nerve was overpowered by the ever-growing urge to run until he hit water, and headed to the ICU, where Stan was residing after surgery. Intensive care was nothing more than a glassed in ward of beds flanked by buzzing machines and whirring monitors and clicking IVs. The patients looked like the unfortunate failure of some kind of sinister science experiment, bloated and ashen, bandaged and sedated and Stan, the regal businessman with the sophistication and the Prince Charming jaw, was laid out in one of those beds. His face was puffy and his hair was a matted mess. The entire right side of his chest was bulky with gauze and Danny could make out a bloody tube snaking from his chest.

Rachel sat by his bedside, one hand intertwined with Stan's, the other holding their newborn son.

He inched closer to the doorway, shoving his hands in his pockets and jerked as the doors whooshed open on pneumatic hinges. Rachel's head snapped to him fiercely, and there were tears on her cheeks and strangled, pitiable sounds pouring out of her mouth. Danny couldn't remember when she wasn't crying.

She didn't speak, merely narrowed her eyes at him, and clutched her son tighter as if Danny was the threat. If that didn't make him feel like a piece of filthy, moldering trash, nothing did.

He cleared his throat and stood his ground. No matter how long they'd been divorced or the fact that she'd remarried and had an entirely new family, Rachel still effected him and intimidated him more than terrorists and murders. "Grace's still asleep. Steve's with her. I just…I wanted. How's he doing?"

She scoffed and turned back to her husband. "You should know, Daniel, _you shot him_."

"Under duress." Danny insisted. "If there was any other out, you know I would have taken it."

"The bullet…the one from you gun, shattered his clavicle…there's pins in it now. It shattered a rib on the way in, which torn a hole in his lung. The bullet from your gun," she continued in a ferocious whisper, "is resting against his shoulder blade, and his surgeon isn't in a particular hurry to remove it. So as it looks now, if Stan lives, he'll be carrying around that little souvenir for the rest of his life."

Rachel shuddered from the ugliness of his wounds and probably from the fact that they were Danny-inflicted. The detective gazed at Stan again and he couldn't help but feel guilty and slighted. Stan had been able to save Grace in a way Danny couldn't. And Rachel couldn't even bear to look at him. Instead she started at her son, tracing a finger down his face that looked a lot like Stan's.

"I'm so sorry, Rachel."

"Stop, Daniel. I can't…I can't even process any of this right now. Can you just go?"

"Both of you need to leave if you're going to be arguing on the ward." A nurse interjected leaning into the room. "The patients need quiet."

Rachel stood up and placed a slumbering Charlie in his designer stroller. "Would you mind looking after him for just a few moments? I'd like to check on my daughter."

The nurse, a stocky, older woman with a freckled face, nodded in her agreement. "Take your time."

Rachel ventured out of the room and the ICU with Daniel trailing behind her. In the elevator, they stood side by side. "I know this isn't your fault. Logically, I know you didn't have a choice."

Danny had spent the past nine hours trying to convince himself of the very same thing. "But…"

"I understand how much you loathed Stanley and our marriage…and that Charles isn't yours. I know how much you hate me after what I did to you. And I can't help but think that you enjoyed it…that you didn't hesitate to shoot him—"

"Except I did. I took a chance with our daughter's life not to kill him. If I wanted him dead, if I did what I was told to do, he'd be dead!"

Rachel slapped him, hard and fast across the cheek. Danny's vision shorted out win a flash of reddish-white as she hit him again. Idly, he was proud that she still attacked the way he'd taught her, but it outraged him that he was considered the the threat. He stumbled back, the railing jutting uncomfortably in his lower back as she pressed forward, hitting him with a closed fist. Rachel had never been a damsel in need of rescue, she was a fighter, and she was fighting for her family.

"I hate you, Daniel. I hate what you brought to my family. I hate what you've become."

Daniel snatched Rachel's wrist as gently as he could, restraining without causing anymore pain. His face throbbed in time with his cantering heart. "Your family? Just a few months ago, I was your family. That baby was OUR family. You could barely spend two days alone with him…in Maui—the holy grail of tropical paradises. And now, what? He's the love of your life? He's your husband? Who was he when you were sleeping with me? When you said you loved me?"

Rachel looked like she was a breath away from clawing his eyes out. She held her index finger that was topped with a perfectly manicured nail, her face glinting with appalled rage. "The second he took that bloody bullet for Grace. The second he did for her what you wouldn't. That's when, Daniel."

His knees wobbled and he sank back against the wall of the elevator. He'd prided himself on making the island safer for Grace. He wore the badge with honor because he was protecting his daughter's home.

The doors opened with a ding and Rachel stalked off with an off-putting click of her expensive shoes.

Danny trailed behind her, choking under the realization that everything he'd done, all of the chances he took, Rick still won.


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks so much for all of the alerts and reviews. It means so much! Here's the last part. This part has a little more Steve. I missed him in the first chapter.

The saga ends! Let me know what you think.

_Mahalo!_

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><p><strong>Chapter 2<strong>

He remained a silent, small presence at his daughter's bedside while Rachel sat with a slumbering Grace, stroked her hair, and promised she'd feel better in the morning. There was no malice in her words, only the warmth of a promise a mother could bring.

Rachel had gotten pregnant on their honeymoon—and that irony was never lost on Danny— and even though he was newly married, and had been a cop for years, Danny was still very much a kid who loved being a goof with his boys and drinking much. In the beginning, impending fatherhood was a terrifying obstacle he couldn't escape nor comprehend. It was too much, too soon and too fast, and after the wedding, all he'd wanted to do was put on the breaks and milk the perks of newlyhood-dom. Except Rachel had already changed, trading her own late nights for early morning sickness and her beloved Choos for sensible flats. She had blossomed into a mother while Danny flailed convinced himself he'd be a terrible father. One night when Rachel was asleep, naked because she suddenly found clothes "bloody suffocating," Danny laid a trembling hand on her mounded stomach and out of sheer curiosity. He wasn't sure how long he held his hand there but he felt it eventually, a tiny thump that ignited a paternal the biggest epiphany of his life.

He was going to be a dad. There was a life waiting and depending on him.

Fatherhood was still a gargantuan task, but Danny no longer ran from its importance. That night he made a frenzied trip to the grocery store and stocked the house with every kind of fruit and vegetable he could find and he stocked the fridge and freezers with chicken breast, ground turkey and the cube steaks Rachel craved. Rachel had her eye on an old, but recently remodeled house, and Danny had bought it that weekend, borrowing a few thousand dollars from his brother to make a hefty down payment.

Becoming a dad had given Danny's life focus, clarity and an unfettered joy that nothing else had. Grace's mere existence had forced him to be a better cop and a better man.

As he stood in that hospital room, it dawned on him with a profound calamity that he'd been millimeters away from losing his daughter, from the one thing that kept his sane during the divorce and fighting when he'd gotten shot. His breath faltered and he took a step closer to the bed, needing to lay eyes and hands on Grace for reassurance, as he had done for the first months of her life, neurotically checking if she was breathing. As he drew closer, all he saw was the greatest hits from old cases—little girls with garroted throats; boys who'd been strangled; babies who'd been beaten and shaken.

Pain lanced through his chest, sharp and piercing as his stomach roiled with nausea. He muttered an excuse to back out of the room as the available air around him thinned and his skin tingled and slithered with primal, sickening horror. He knocked over some complicated machinery, but the resounding clang of it hitting the ground sounded like gunshots, a screaming child, Rick's crazed laughter. Tossing an apology over his shoulder, Danny let his watery legs carry him away from the symphony of death throes and the crunch of shattering bone. It was by sheer dumb luck that he staggered into the ER's garishly blue bathroom and he made one desperate heave for a toilet seconds before he vomited up everything he'd ever eaten since he'd moved to Hawaii. At least it was a reprieve from the apocalyptic panic that compressed his chest with icy leathery hands which made it impossible to breathe, smeared the lights and colors of the bathroom into too-bright blur, twisted his piteous groans into Grace's last breath, dying gurgles. And it only fueled his queasiness to the point where he was dry-heaving so hard his eyes bulged. It was the agony of in his chest, from his broken heart, that drove him to his knees, head hanging into the toilet.

He was going to die.

He'd always joked, albeit darkly, that losing his wife and his daughter was more than his heart could take, and now just the threat of it had all but stopped his heart. His breath rushed through him with a rapid ferocity that it made him lightheaded and only intensified the hot snaps and prickles in his fingers and ears, the backs of his eyes.

Danny needed to get help, except his legs wouldn't hold him and he couldn't gather the breath to scream.

Water flooded his eyes, and then dropped down his cheeks. As static crackled in his eyes, and his vision shorted out, flashing between black and white and oversaturated color, he wondered if these would be his last memories.

He drifted in a horrible purgatory between consciousness and not, too weak and too frazzled to do anything but. Suddenly, there was a hand on his back, and then a strong arm around his waist to prop him up against the wall.

"Danny. Danny? Hey, can you open your eyes? It's Steve…come on, man."

Steve was shaking him, rattling him like a dog killing a rat, and wouldn't stop. When his eyes finally opened, the lights were grating and harsh, and he could only make out some watery approximation of Steve's chiseled features.

"What's going on, Danny? What's wrong?"

Danny saw both of Steve's hands, as he leaned forward to flush the toilet and realized Steve wasn't shaking him, but that he was trembling in painful, teeth-chattering jags. He was grateful when Steve pulled his shift open with an efficient snap, even though it gave him a terrifying case of déjà vu. "Did Rick hurt you?"

_God yes_, Danny wanted to say.

There was a hot hand on his cold, clammy face. And Steve was making 'little boy' face with eyes were too blue and too big, and the only tell about how much Steve was freaked out.

"Danny. You're scaring me here, and I don't scare easy. Talk to me right now."

"_Dying_." He clutched at his aching chest, and rasped, "…_heart attack_?"

All of the color from Steve "Ninja" McGarrett's face drained away into a horrified shade of crisp white. His mouth dropped open and shook his head in defiance. "No, Danny. You're gonna be fine. I'm going for help," Steve clapped the cheek he had been palming seconds before. "Stay awake. I'm serious. _Stay here_."

Steve left before Danny could protest that idea of gurneys and needles and tubes only made him feel worse. He closed his eyes and bared the agony all while trying not to tear his hair out and or scratch at his crawling skin.

The next thing he knew Dr. Jensen was squatting down in front of him, Steve at his side. They were all wedged into the men's room stall, and it was too many hands touching and groping, too many eyes leering. Dr. Jensen remained unmoved by his tortured moans, and pressed two gloved fingers into his check, checking his pulse. "Jesus, Danny," she muttered obviously discovering just how fast his heart was beating. "Your chest hurts, I take it?"

He nearly bit his tongue on his snapping teeth, so he nodded, still huffing and puffing like he'd ran a marathon.

"Okay…you're doing great, Danny. I have to know, does it shoot down your left arm? This is important."

The molten core of the pain was in chest, it burned and glinted, but he didn't feel it anywhere else. He shook his head with emphasis. _No._

"What else are you feeling, Danny? Tell me as best you can."

"…light hurts…sounds not right…_gonna die_." Danny heaved.

At that Dr. Jensen seemed relieved and her shoulders dropped a bit and she sat back on her heels. "I'll need to run some tests, but I think you're having an anxiety attack."

Danny glared at her with all the nastiness and cynicism he could muster. And he heard Steve's distant, nervous chuckle.

"Have you ever had one before?"

He had when there was two lines instead of one on the pregnancy stick and a stack of bills for his wedding on the table. "…ne'er like this…"

"We need to get you to a bed so I can rule out a MI. If you're having a panic attack, I can give you a mild sedative and you can get some rest."

For Danny, utter humiliation was having Commander Steve McGarrett practically carry him out of the bathroom stall, one arm around his back, the other supporting his elbow like he was someone's grandmother. Steve didn't seem to mind, snagging a stool as Savannah worked, taking his vitals and hooking him up to an IV with the port that was still conveniently placed in his arm and a heart monitor and pulse ox to double-check his rhythms.

"Danny, I know it's hard, but you need to try to slow your breathing down…" Dr. Jensen said quietly, checking the monitors.

He gripped the rail of the bed against the pain and the effort of the task. "...can't..."

Steve lifted something in front of his face. It took Danny a minute to focus on what it was: a picture of Grace on her eighth birthday that Steve had snapped with his iPhone. She wore a tutu that probably took all the pink and purple tulle in Hawaii. She had a huge party with laughter and balloons and too much cake. Grace and her nine of her closest friends nearly overdosed on sugar and candy. He'd planned it all on his own and had commandeered Steve's house for the festivities.

He looked at the picture and felt something in his chest loosen, a thread being pulled from a seam. Air rushed in, a little bit at first, but it steadily increased until he could do more than pant. He'd regained control over his limbs and shakily reached up to hold the phone, to press the screen to keep the picture in living color.

"She's right down the hall, Danny, and she's fine, a little shaken, but she's a fighter just like her dad. When I saw her, she was holding Charlie, telling him about the ride in the ambulance," Steven promised. "I didn't tell them that you're not feeling well. They think you're debriefing your captain back in Jersey." He pushed the picture down to grab Danny's eyes. "They're taken care of Danny, so you need take care of yourself right now, okay?"

"Tryin'," he rasped.

It took an eternity but somehow, the paranoia faded way, dragging the nausea and tingling limbs with it. All that remained was a hollowed out husk who could do little more than breathe and clutch that stupid phone like it was a lifeline to sanity.

"There ya go, Danny, just keep taking deep, slow breaths. Your heart looks good. I'm going to run some blood tests to be sure. But I think we're in the clear. You need to rest, okay?"

Dr. Jensen had injected some Valium into his IV, not enough to knock him out but it made him feel drowsy with an artificial calm. She left with forty-seven tubes of Danny's blood, and it was just him and Steve and the trauma hovering in the room. Somehow, he was able to think about more than just making it through the next hour.

"I'm…feeling better, I think." He whispered. His chest was still tight, and his stomach muscles still spasmed, and he wasn't sure he could walk twenty feet if he had to, but he wasn't seeing Grace's demise with his waking eyes, so he considered that a win.

"I'm calling bullshit on that one," Steve said. "All that stuff that happened to Grace happened to you, too. You need to decompress, Danno…and not hyperventilating and passing out in a bathroom by yourself."

Danny played with the pulse ox clip on his finger and allowed himself to ask the first question that fluttered through his mind. "Is HPD going to arrest me for shooting Rick?" He wondered, staring at the ceiling.

"For shooting Peterson when he was running away? No."

"He wasn't running away, Steve. He was a in custody and I shot him."

"In my report, he was running away."

"And how will that line up with the ten thousand witnesses at the park?" Danny's heart thumped uncomfortably fast, but it was with anger this time, not panic. "Lying about what I did…isn't much different than what Peterson did?" He sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, aggravated at how lightheaded that made him. "I mean, I believe in justice but how many lines are we going to cross?"

"Lay back down before I cuff you to the bed," Steve hissed. When Danny didn't obey, Steve whipped out his cuffs and clicked them around his wrist before chaining it to the guardrail before Danny had even noticed he'd moved. He stood at Danny's bedside, where he had been for the past hour until Danny acquiesced, lying back down on the thin pillows.

Steve watched the monitor and didn't engage him until he was satisfied with the numbers. "You're really trying to give yourself a heart attack, aren't you?" Steve shook his head. He plopped back down in his seat, legs crossed loosely at the ankle.

"For Grace? I'd cross them all and I'd sleep like a baby at night. I'm a SEAL, Danny, the stuff I've done in the name of my country, to save lives…it's ugly and sometimes I hate it, but it's not wrong."

"Well, I'm a cop, Steve. I took an oath to uphold the law. Shooting a guy, a handcuffed, unresisting scumbag, is still wrong."

Steve crossed his arms over his chest. "That's really how you want it?"

"Yes."

"Then you're fired, Danny. Effectively immediately."

Danny settled against the pillows, feeling muted shock, thanks to the drugs, and bit betrayed that Steve had given in so easily. Beneath it all, he understood that he deserved some kind of punishment even if it wasn't the slightest bit remorseful.

Steve stayed until his bag of saline was empty, his test results came back perfectly normal and Dr. Jensen discharged him with an order to rest and a sincere hug. "Take care of yourself," she said, pulling back to look at both Danny and Steve. "Grace is ready to go home too. Make sure she pushes fluids and stays out of the sun for a few days. You," she pointed at him, "take some days off and relax, and talk to someone if you feel panicky again."

"Of course. Thanks, Dr. Jensen."

"My frequent flyers call me Savannah. Get out of here, Danny."

Steve herded him towards the door. "We're going, Savannah. Thanks again."

Rachel sat in the waiting room chairs with Grace in her lap, and Charlie bundled in his carrier. She gazed at him tiredly as he approached and looked away just as quickly.

"How are things with you…and Rachel?"

Danny's shoulders tightened reflexively. "Grim. Bleak. Icy." He supplied. "Rick won. Stan took the bullet and he's her hero. Pretty sure we're going to be doing the custody dance again."

"No you're not," Steve began, "because you're going to fight. Danny, I don't know the first thing about being a dad or being married, but fight for that kid the way you did today…"

"Grace was kidnapped because of me, because of something I did before she was born…do you get that? This whole thing is my fault."

Steve stopped Danny with a firm grip on his shoulders. "No, it's Rick's fault…he was dirty and got caught and couldn't hack it in prison. He only wins if you let him."

Danny wished it was that simple, that Steve was right, but Rick had just detonated the bomb of his already precarious family predicament. But Steve's heart was in the right place, so Danny forced out an optimistic smile. "I won't, Steve. Don't worry. Why don't you go home and get some sleep." I'll come by tomorrow and clean out my desk."

Steve clapped him on the shoulder. "Come by tomorrow evening. I don't want to see your ass in the morning."

Danny approached Rachel and smiled down a groggy Grace. Her little wave stoked the paternal fire inside of him as Rachel stared just passed him, face set in cold indifference. "She wanted to say good night."

"Aww, don't worry about that, Monkey. I'm staying with you tonight. This isn't debatable, Rachel." Danny announced and he leaned in to scoop Grace out of her lap. He walked out to Rachel's SVU, and his ex-wife had no choice but to follow.

As soon as both kids were safely tucked in the back seat, Danny shut the door and blocked Rachel from climbing in the driver's seat. "If you even think of bringing lawyers into this, of taking away custody for something that was utterly out of my control, I will have to bring up issues of Charlie's questioned paternity and maybe tell them that you're prone to violent outbursts against a police officer in elevators. _I'm her father, Rachel_. That nightmare that happened to her today well it happened to me too. I had a gun waved in my face and some whackjob blackmailing me my daughter's life. If you think that I wouldn't die for that kid, then you've must have sleepwalked through our entire marriage. I don't care if you hate me, but you are not taking my kid away from me. Nothing ever will." Danny promised. "I didn't fight as hard as I could last time, but I will this time. Just don't make me."

Rachel placed a hand on his chest, the way she had when they were still married, but still refused to meet his eyes. "I'd never take her away from you, Daniel. And…I'm sorry about…today, what happened to you. That's all I can do right now."

"That's all I want, Rachel."

He stepped aside, hoping that Chin could hook him with his old security job or maybe he could work on a cocoa farm. That sounded good. He could wear a colorful Hawaii shirt, spend days in the sun walking amongst the cocoa trees and become Hawaii's first Willie Wonka. Nope, Danny wouldn't miss the badge at all.

As he climbed into the passenger seat, Danny's phone rang. He slumped against the headrest, wanting nothing more than to abuse Stan's elaborate marble shower and crash in Grace's giant pink-drenched bedroom. "What, Steve?"

"You're re-hired. See ya next week." Steve announced before hanging up.

Danny could only shake his head in disbelief, and clipped his shield back to his belt with pride.


End file.
